To Be Perfect
by alecsangryface
Summary: Do better, be more.
**A/N: This is coming with heavy heavy trigger warnings. There is mention of eating disorders and purging in addition to Jace's mental condition because of Valentine. Please please please do not read this if you will be triggered in any way.**

 _You have to do better Jonathan. I expect more from you_

They're the first words he can remember his father saying. They become the words Jace lives by, do better, be more. He dedicates every ounce of his energy to being better, every day training, reading, learning, everything to be as good as his father expects him to be. He doesn't realise just how much it breaks him.

When Jace was nine he broke his arm. He miss-stepped on one of the training balance beams, throwing off his centre of gravity and fell to the floor. Rather than landing like he had been taught to Jace had put out his arms to attempt to stop himself from falling and his ulna had broken through his skin. The pain was excruciating, but Jace knew the way his father would react would be worse.

An iratze could be placed to set the bone back in place and heal the skin, but it would still be tender for four weeks. Those four weeks meant no training, a fact that his father was most displeased about. He wore the cast and stayed as far away from the training room, instead sleeping, eating, breathing the library to further his knowledge of demons, for four weeks so he healed in the fastest time possible. He had never been more thankful to get back to training.

His father had joined him for training this time, not letting Jace go through his routine alone, with only his thoughts and instincts to keep him company as he normally did. Jace knew it would be different.

"You've lost all muscle definition" his father had said, his voice so hard it almost made Jace flinch back before he remembered one of his father's cardinal rules; _never show weakness._

"I will be cutting your meals until you lose the weight you've gained" Jace nodded, his hands grip the other harder where they were folded behind his back. His meals were already meagre, chicken and rice for carbohydrates and protein with little else aside from occasional vegetables, never anything sweet. But he did not argue, he knew he was nowhere near being the perfect soldier his father wanted him to be. That included having the perfect muscle to fat ratio.

His father shows him no mercy that training session. He ends the day black and blue with fewer iratze's than he needed. He knows his has to do better, be more and he wouldn't have to be in this pain. Another of his father's cardinal rules: _be better than your opponent_.

When his father dies, he goes to live with the Lightwoods. Maryse and Robert are stern, much like his father, but fair, very unlike his father. Alec and Isabelle are better than he expected, and he knows that with the right training the three of them together would be unstoppable when they finally got to hunt.

The New York Institute had a very different regime when it came to training. More time was spent learning languages, histories and demonology than he had ever dedicated to it before. Then when physical training came he spent more time of his specialist weapon than he did sparring. His ease with the Seraph blade doesn't seem nearly as impressive as Alec and Izzy's ease with their weapons.

Jace found he pushed himself harder on the occasion that Alec and Izzy would be practising their weapons at the same time as him. They both looked perfect, their every move fluid into the next, the bow and the whip extensions of their beings, and it was effortless. Jace knew he had to put more effort in, had to do better, had to be more.

The first time he makes himself vomit he's fifteen and it was because he broke his arm again, with the broken arm comes the weight gain. It was almost funny how things always come full circle.

After that he always starts the day stripped down to his underwear and staring at himself in the full length mirror in his room. This was the only mirror he would allow himself to look at, every other was either covered or avoided. He would flex his muscles and pinch at his skin to see far exactly he was away from perfection. It was always too far.

He stomachs down a banana or an apple for breakfast. Then attends his classes and trains for the rest of the day, he skips lunch. Dinner is eaten almost in whole then thrown up when he's sure everyone else in the Institute is sleeping. It doesn't make him feel better, it makes him feel so very tired and weak all the time, but he's getting closer to perfection. He knows he is.

Another of his father's cardinal rules: _never stop short of your goal._

When he's seventeen eating food becomes a lot harder without immediately forcing it back out of his stomach.

His bedroom had an ensuite bathroom, it had been that way since the day he had moved in, the Lightwoods had been very respectful of his desire for privacy, especially considering how jumpy he had been the first time they had had to reprimand him.

Hearing the sound of vomit hitting porcelain was not a satisfying sound. Despite Jace knowing that it was helping him, he had never felt weaker when he heard that sound. He wished he could be strong enough to resist food altogether, but he couldn't even do that.

 _Do better._ The sound of his weakness. _Be more._

The tears that come with the action are normal, he couldn't stop them even if he tried and try he did. He keeps going and going until he's shaking and dry heaving, then slumping forward to press his sweat soaked forehead against the cold but rapidly warming surface.

"Jace?" He scrambles up off the floor, attempting to look as put together as he would if he hadn't just been forcing food out him stomach. The quick movement so soon after he had finished his nightly routine caused him to stumble. Alec was there to catch him.

"What's up, Alec?" Jace asked. He tried to sound normal, tries to not show how his own weakness was affecting him. His resolve cracked a little bit more when he saw that Alec was not convinced.

"The walls are thin. I wanted to know if you're okay." Alec paused as he took in Jace's tired features, "I guess you're not."

"No, I'm fine" Jace lied. He hated lying to his parabatai, but if Alec knew the truth then he would surely sever the bond.

Alec's eyes narrowed and his shoulders tightened, Jace didn't flinch back, he couldn't let himself. Alec gently took a hold of Jace's shoulders and led him back to the shower, without speaking the two of them undressed Jace and Alec switched the shower on, pushing Jace back into the cold stream.

The freezing cold water descended like icy daggers on his back and shoulders, the hot water having already been used up by everyone else. Alec followed him into the shower, still fully dressed in his cotton pyjamas and easily getting soaked. His eyes didn't wander but his hands were methodical and did not linger as he washed Jace's hair free of vomit and his skin free of sweat. Jace let himself be turned this way and that, only the gentle pressure of Alec's hands guiding him.

He was shivering by the time Alec had finished and even when a large fluffy white towel was wrapped around his shoulders it did little to stop his shaking. Alec quietly told him to dry off while he got them both a change of clothes. So he did, it was much easier to function under orders like his father had given him, he didn't have to think about being perfect, he could let someone else worry about it for him.

Alec returned now dry and handed him his own pyjamas. He left to wait in the bedroom while Jace changed, privacy suddenly becoming a priority despite him having seen Jace's most intimate areas. When Jace enters his bedroom, he finds Alec already tucked up in his bed, lifting the duvet to offer the space next to him to Jace. Jace crawled in and let himself be held, Alec's breath tickling the back of his neck.

"Come to me next time you want to do that" Alec had whispered, his arms tightening where they had settled around Jace's waist, "I'm your parabatai, I'll always be there for you. No matter what" With those words Jace found himself feeling lighter, Alec had quietly and without prompting had shouldered some of Jace's burden.

He didn't sleep that night but he didn't look in the mirror the next morning.

After that night it becomes on of Alec's unspoken duties, he would make sure Jace would eat enough to sustain him and be there when Jace fought against the need to purge. There was stumbling block after stumbling block, Jace too stubborn to let such a facet of his life be almost completely out of his control and sometimes he pushes himself too far, eats too much and makes himself sick anyway. But he gets better, he can eat without needing to be rid of the feeling of fullness, he can wake up in the morning without the need to analyse how close to being perfect he was, he could take his father's rules and change them to fit his new found happiness.

By the time he's nineteen he would consider himself cured. He sleeps with girls, proudly showing off his bulky muscles, knowing that he did enough to deserve them, knowing that the slight fat covering them is there because it's meant to be and not because he is weak. He tries to be there for Alec like he was with him in his own struggles, but he had never been one for supportive words, he hopes the tactile gestures are enough.

Perfection was what he wanted to achieve, his mind, body and soul were broken in his pursuit of it. He feels perfect when he is with Clary.

Clary instilled a feeling of rightness that he had never felt before when she smiled. He felt perfect whenever she laughed at one of his jokes. He felt perfect when he finally understood that this feeling of rightness must be what love feels like, not fireworks and butterflies like the books he read described it. It felt like coming home after a long time away. It felt right.

The feeling doesn't last. He finds out she's his sister and for the first time in a long time he wants to force himself to vomit so he can feel something. Then he goes with Valentine because he knows now, he has to do better and be more, and the only way to do that is to go with his father. He would not let his weakness control him again.

For six weeks his father bests him in training and points out exactly how weak he had become. For six weeks Jace is broken to almost the point of no return. For six weeks Jace clings with white knuckles to the feeling burrowed deep in his chest of seeing Clary's smile, and to the parabatai bond that had always been there for him. He needs them more than ever and maybe, just maybe, they're the reason he can come back to them not a complete shell of a man.

Alec is there again, his pillar of strength from the moment they first collapse back into each other's arms. He doesn't tell him that he can't be near Alec's perfection, that he can't bear to see how Alec found true happiness while he was away. He needs Alec to help him back to perfection but he would never be the one to ruin what his parabatai had found, no matter how much he needed him.

The way he had begun that journey at fifteen works just as well for him at twenty as it did then.

 _Do better, be more_

Clary finds him first and only a week after he had returned, oh how he hates himself for being caught again, and by the sister that he's still having inappropriate feelings for. If Jace were alone at that point he would have retched and retched until his stomach lining was leaving him as well. But he wasn't alone, he wasn't even strong enough to stand, he remembers Valentine's voice _'you have become weak with them'_ this isn't the first time since he had been back that those words had haunted him.

He looks at Clary and sees disgust, for him and for what he's doing, he doesn't blame her. He feels it too. He laughs when she leaves the room in a hurry, laughter hurts his throat so he keeps doing it until he can force his fingers back.

"Jace" Alec's voice is broken and small behind him.

Jace turns to him, bile dripping out of the side of his mouth and mixing with the sweat on his chin. Clary and Isabelle are stood behind him, peering over his shoulder looking heartbroken. Alec doesn't betray any emotion, it had always been Jace's favourite of Alec's traits, it made it so much easier to be broken and imperfect when he wasn't being judged for it.

"Leave us for a minute" Alec waves behind him and Jace is sure he can hear Magnus' voice somewhere leading Clary and Isabelle away. Alec's eyes don't leave his once. He's grounded.

Alec's hands are as steady as they were three years before as they undress him and wash him, the water warmer this time but still as painful. He doesn't realise as he is being guided that he's whispering _'I'm not good enough'_ until Alec whimpers and wraps him in a hug. Water rains down on the both of them, Jace naked and Alec fully clothed again, as Jace sags against his bother.

"You're good enough. You'll always be good enough Jace" Alec whispers to him.

Jace doesn't believe him then, but he knows he will eventually because of the determination in Alec's voice. There is a part of him that he had buried for six weeks that was calling to his other half in that embrace, the part of him that knows he's good enough, to be Alec's parabatai, to be a Lightwood, to be Jace.

 _Do better._ Let that part of himself be free. _Be more._


End file.
